


Furniture Struggle

by Schreibmaschine



Series: Archive for my tumblr prompts [8]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Moving In Together, struggling with ikea instructions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27079849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schreibmaschine/pseuds/Schreibmaschine
Summary: Nines and Gavin move in together and Gavin has bought their first shelf. Nines has a mental breakdown over a missing screw.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: Archive for my tumblr prompts [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954156
Comments: 18
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the tumblr user liminalityyy!

It had been a swift decision in the end. One nobody had expected, keeping in mind the disaster of the first few months of them working together. Hell, it had ended in screaming and curses on a good day and caused hospitalisation in the worst. Weeks of tension and everybody keeping a safety distance from their desks. But eventually they had let it fall. No one knew why exactly they stopped going at each other’s throats – it happened from one day to the next. Most speculated it was bound to a case, others betted on a hard reset on RK900 and a severe concussion with Reed. But they started working together instead of against each other and eventually even surpassed Hank and Connor in terms of work efficiency. It was as neither of them were caught individually, that people started spreading rumours again. It was never just one, the Detective or the android. You’d always get the whole package: Detective Asshole and Detective stick-up-his-ass.

So, as they both updated their address and it ended up being the same, it was no surprise the whole precinct knew it in a matter of seconds. Connor had initially found it, being updated about every change in the systems it seemed. He told Hank, Tina overheard it – and that was the end of it. One glare of Nines though and no one dared to ask questions. They were quietly observed as they gathered their documents and left early as they had taken vacation for the moving.

RK900 had deemed one week as enough. They both would work on it and he didn’t need sleep. Renovation was scheduled for the first days, setup of the essential inventory afterwards. Just enough to keep a human alive and content, the rest they could juggle somehow between working hours. It was a menacing work, scratching off the old wallpaper, putting the new one up, cleaning everything afterwards, applying lights. Nines was sure had he not already deviated he would have done so now. Gavin had helped him the first day, the second was reserved for him driving to multiple home-centres to buy some furniture for the empty house. He would send Nines pictures of everything he deemed fitting and he gave his acceptance.

In the evening Nines had finished scratching off the whole house and already started putting up new wallpaper again. It was when he finished the room that the door opened for Gavin who carried an ominous box. ‘The first shelve’, he groaned. It had to be heavy. ‘Was cheaper that way. The rest will be delivered in the next week. Should I start putting it together?’  
Nines took the box from him effortlessly. ‘No. You should relax for now. Humans tend to need it. A serious design flaw, if you ask me.’  
‘Hey, tin-can you seem to forget the miracles of coffee. Where is that boost option for your kind, hmm?’ But instead of really picking a fight, he simply leaned against a dry wall and looked around. ‘You finished quite a lot. Now I feel bad about this.’  
‘You don’t have to. I assure you I would have failed at the task of finding something visually appealing and effective at the same time.’  
‘Oh, for phck’s sake! And here I was thinking you would stop with the techno-babble once you deviated. But thanks.’  
‘Seriously, take some time to relax. Maybe take a shower, your smell is distracting me with analysing prompts.’  
‘Will do, toaster. Love you too!’

Nines looked around and figured assembling the shelf would be far more interesting and diversified than gluing rolls of paper to the walls. He opened the box and laid the contents out in front of him, organising everything before he started. Then he fished the instruction manual out of the cardboard-hell and opened it. No text. Not even a hint of what to do. Some pictures, yes, but no text, nothing to help outlining a clear order except for his interpretation of stick figures and badly managed perspective. He let out a frustrated groan. He knew this was most likely done to spare the cost of translating the instructions, but seriously – there were good, free accessible translators out there.

Well, he was the most advanced android Cyberlife had ever built. Clearly, he wouldn’t have any problems following instructions a human could easily understand. They wouldn’t print manuals they themselves couldn’t understand, would they?  
He ran over every picture, interpreting it, comparing it to the materials at hand and started building up his own manual from the data he gathered. Then he put the instruction aside and started working.

It was rewarding seeing the shelf assemble under his hands and he could understand what fascinated humans so much in building something. After some time, Gavin came back from the shower, looked at him wide-eyed and went for his coffee. The machine had been the first thing to be installed in their new home.  
‘Holy shit, terminator, you are flying through this thing. You don’t even use the manual?’  
‘I saved it in my mind.’  
‘Tell me, did you phck up already?’  
‘Detective, I never fail my mission. I am not my brother.’  
‘Seriously? I always did something wrong and had to undo it in the end. Guess we found the cure for Swedish-furniture phck-ups.’

RK900 ignored him. He was only human and as much as he enjoyed being with him, as much as he could only describe him as perfect, he knew his flaws. But that was okay, even Nines himself wasn’t without them.

He stood up to lift the last board up to the top and press it into the designated holes, took a step back and admired his work. The shelf was exactly symmetrical, was stable enough to hold everything they might want to put in there and even looked… sleek. Gavin had taste.  
‘Nice work, RK! I’m so phcking proud, I will boast about this everywhere. We might be the first couple to successfully assemble a shelf on the first try! Wait, I’ll clean this up first.’  
He moved to gather the plastic foil and excess cardboard, inspecting the box whether it was worthy to take to his shitty apartment for his cat. As he lifted up a particular large foil something slid down on it. A small silver thing clattering as it hit the ground. Gavin got down to pick it up.  
‘Hey, toaster, were there excess pieces?’  
‘No, Gavin.’ Nines was still standing in front of the shelf, testing out if the capacity lived up to its expectations.  
‘Could it be that you missed a screw?’  
The android froze, then turned to the man, LED red against the frame. Quickly he snatched it out of his partner’s hands and scanned it. It was indeed one of the screws that should be somewhere in _there._

He felt his systems overheating as he analysed his memories and searched for the moment, he failed his mission. Nothing.  
‘I… I don’t understand, I did exactly as instructed. I… This shouldn’t be possible.’  
Gavin looked up to his face void of any emotion except for desperation. Shit. ‘Hey, Nines, it’s okay. See?’ He gave the shelf a push and it didn’t move an inch. ‘It’s rock solid. No one cares if a screw is missing as long as it works. And this thing has more structural integrity than my sanity.’  
‘That doesn’t say much.’  
‘Oh phck you, I’m trying to be comforting here when you seem to have a mental breakdown over furniture assembly. This thing will be kept together by the sole fear of what you would do to it just to get this screw to its original place, okay?’  
The LED was still a raging hot red.  
‘Fine, watch this:’ He went over to a window, opened it and threw the accursed piece out with all his strength. ‘See? It’s gone. You wouldn’t have noticed a thing had it stayed in the foil and had I thrown it in the trash. Get over it. I will go home to sleep now, and I would advise you to go into stasis when you get so riled up by a phcking missing screw. Take some care of yourself, babe!’

RK900 looked back at the shelf and analysed it again. Ran simulations whether an additional piece would greatly increase its quality. He came to the conclusion that the Detective was right, and it wouldn’t really matter.

Still he went out armed with a flashlight that night in search of the screw Gavin had thrown out. He wouldn’t tolerate anything less than perfect in his home.


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was prompted by the AO3 users HeadFullOfFantasy, imaginaryfriendashkun and DetReed900!

Some new wallpapers and the essentials to survive didn’t make a flat a home. But more wasn’t possible in the short vacation time they were granted just after the revolution. Cases were coming in rapidly and they needed everyone back at the precinct as soon as possible. That’s why after all important work was done and they could both live in their new flat, Nines agreed to get back to work on 24/7 shifts. Gavin had protested against it but couldn’t say anything more as he was given a list of reasons. The main one being that Gavin couldn’t just forgo his vacation as his rent on his old flat was running out. He had to have all of his stuff out of his old home before the end of the week and moving was more difficult on his own when he didn’t have an android with superhuman strength and unlimited stamina at his side.

So, his days just got busier. Juggling watching over the shower installation crew, some technicians the landlord had sent over for the recently found water leak last minute, driving to and from his flat with his car to get out everything he could and carrying everything he couldn’t out for bulk collection, really took its toll on Gavin. And so, he was quite relieved when all was done and the last few days there would only be assembly of cupboards for kitchen and bedroom and more furniture for the bath- and living room.

Gavin swung back and forth in between the door to accept all the packages and his current projects, often forgetting a step during assembly or having to do it all over again because when he returned he had to find out which piece was what number again. It was a frustrating work, but in the end, he really liked the change. It was less a physically tasking one and more counting on endurance. Plus, the added satisfaction of seeing the assembled piece in its rightful place was enough to keep him going.

He couldn’t wait to see Nines’ reaction when he got home after his inhumane shifts and be able to relax in a fully furnished flat. Maybe they could spend the weekend on their new sofa. Or maybe the new king-sized bed? Either way it would play out, Gavin looked forward to spending it with his love.

-

Nines hadn’t minded staying at the precinct the rest of the week. It had been the normal for androids before the revolution, so he had supposed it would be easy for him. But knowing he could have spent his evenings with his human made it all the worse. He was so looking forward to the weekend when he could see him again. He was also quite excited to see how much work Gavin had managed on their flat. He hoped he hadn’t done too much. He already felt guilty leaving the man alone with it all.

Maybe it would have dampened his mood once he saw what awaited him at home.

Gavin had put the small brass name plate just above the doorbell and Nines affectionately let his thumb run over it before opening the door. _Nines & Gavin Reed. _He would never not love the sound of that.  
‘Gavin I’m ho-‘

The words got stuck in his throat as his sensors overwhelmed him with new data. He had been about to hang up his coat on the clothing hanger, but froze mid-movement.  
‘Oh, Nines! Welcome back! God, I missed you! Here, let me take that!’ Gavin came running in for a quick kiss, before snatching the coat from him and throwing it over the hook. ‘Come on, come on! Let me show you around! I got everything set up while you were gone and I’m loving it!’  
Nines allowed himself to be pulled into the living room and swallowed hard. It was hard to think of anything Gavin had created as less than perfect as the man was perfect in every way, but… it was hard to look at. Incongruencies in size and shape, minutely wrong aligned edges and uneven surfaces. It might be along the five percent variation that humans couldn’t see or didn’t mind and looked nicely to a human, but he wasn’t. He was an android designed to be better and… it troubled him.  
‘Do you like it?’, Gavin asked. ‘I just put it where I thought it would look best, but if you want something somewhere else, I’ll gladly change it!’  
Nines looked around, desperately looking for a way out. ‘It’s nice’, he finally managed to press out, but he hadn’t expected the static a lie often brought with itself.  
Gavin, ever the attentive Detective, immediately frowned and looked up at Nines. ‘Hey, what’s wrong? We can talk about it. It is your flat, too and I want you to be comfortable.’  
‘It’s all crooked’, Nines admitted. ‘Minutely. I don’t even know if you would pick it up, but I see it everywhere.’  
‘Like the screw thing?’  
‘Like the screw thing’, Nines nodded.  
‘But you got over it’, Gavin remembered, cocking his head. ‘Do you think you can bear this?’

As an answer, Nines took the screw out if his pocket.  
‘You… How… Oh my god.’  
‘I went to search it in the night’, Nines confessed. ‘I meant to put it in once I was alone, but I didn’t have the chance to yet.’  
‘That…’ Gavin stopped, looking at the screw. ‘That still bothers you?’ Nines looked over to the shelf he had assembled, the knowledge there was a component missing not as pressing now as seeing all the other furniture abhorrently assembled.  
‘Not anymore I guess’, Nines said.  
‘Do you think it will be the same with the rest? Can you live like this?’  
‘I will make do’, Nines sighed. ‘Maybe it will make me less machine-like.’

Gavin stepped closer and took the android’s hands in his. ‘Hey, I love you as you are, tin-can. If you can’t stand it, you can tell me. I didn’t plan to spend my weekend like this, but we can disassemble everything and redo it so it isn’t as bad for you.’  
‘That’s nice of you’, Nines nodded and squeezed his hands. ‘But you spent so much time with it, I think I will try first. Maybe I will get used to it.’  
Gavin chuckled, trying to lift the android’s spirits to make him feel less guilty about judging the human. ‘Hey, you got used to all my irregularities somehow.’  
Nines huffed in amusement. ‘I did. Maybe with time I will love our home nearly as much as I do you, then.’  
‘Oh, c’mon, quit the cheesy shit!’  
‘Make me.’

That was something Gavin didn’t have to be told twice. Immediately he pushed Nines towards the sofa until he fell onto the still new smelling cushions on top of him and kissed him.  
Maybe that would give his sensors something else to fuzz over.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want me to continue this story, just hit me up!


End file.
